Going Feral

The older I get, the more I start to identify with the crazy heroines of Holiday RomComs that kidnap, bribe, or hire a man to come home with them for the holidys.

Connecting with my extended family can feel like an Artistic Career report card, and since the markers I hold myself to for success are quite a bit different from what most people look for in success, it feels like a report card filled with F’s.

So I wanted to make a video filled with encouragement and the tips and tricks I’m using this year to honor my creative core and help focus on the love and the good memories I’d rather be making.

Do you go home for the Holidays? Do you have advice or tricks that you’ve used to enjoy the season instead of getting caught up in shame and insecurity?

It’s not teribly suprising that I love Tarot cards. It’s like the one time my memory for symbols and folkloric referances comes in handy (well, that and song writing). So I’ve decided to combine my loves for this new, fun youtube series.

This first video is all about the 10 of Cups. The suit of Cups is all about emotions or soul. It’s both about the cup and what is contained within it. You might even look at the suit of cups as kind of a guage for how balaned ego and spirit are. So 10 is like the “HECK YEAH, THIS IS BOMB!” card of the suit. It’s like the happily ever after card.

Now, happily ever after can feel like an ending, and if you are anything like me that can be anxiety inducing. “

“Now that I’m happy that means this too shall pass so I shouldn’t get attached to this happiness because it will only end up going away!” - actual quote from my brain

But really this is about aknowledging the perfection of the moment - not necissarily that everything looks the way you would like it to look, or like every one is being excellent to each other, but that this present is the only present that you have so it is, by default, perfect. The other realities that you may wish for or worry about are not real, there is only this. And then, kind of tuning in frequency wise to what is wonderful about THIS.

Yes, friends…..I mean being grateful. But not for the stuff you genuinely HATE. If you don’t like your job, or the shitty way you are being treated by someone, you don’t have to be grateful for those things. It’s more like disempowering the things that bug you by shifting your attention to what makes you feel good. Example: Sitting on a bus, someone is being loud and annoying and I’m wet and just want to go home, but simultaneously I am also getting to read a book and enjoy music, I have the capacity to get where I need to go without the expense of a car for less than 10 dollars, I also witness some profound human compassion on the bus that lights me up. Both of those things are true, but if I focus on the positive things, the negative things are less irritating.

Maybe it’s just because I love parties, but it helped me a lot to stop trying to be grateful and instead focus on what I could celebrate every day, as if I were raising a toast. “To my excellent rain boots, and having a warm, dry place to sleep. To my creative outputs and my amazing community. Give it a shot - champagne not required but kind of fun.

Anyway - I hope you like this episode of Magical Musical Oracle . Don’t forget to add your music to the collabrative playlist!

There's no denying that the effort of re-sparking hopes, dreams, and inspiration is tough. It's emotionally exhausting spiritual heavy lifting.

And then you have the actual physical components of the job: the packing and practicing and driving and staying up late and singing for multiple hours and that is also very very hard.

But hardest of all is rewiring everything I have ever been told about work and success.

-That only the special people (and special often means skinny, wealthy, much better at playing along with societies expectations than I am) get to have careers in music.

-That success requires dominance and a lack of scruples

-That being self-employed is unsafe and impractical, that the only way to ensure security is by taking a job (which, by the way, I’m bad at jobs)

-That suffering makes effort more valuable

Every day I struggle to diffuse at least one if not all of these beliefs. Just when I think I’ve finally worked through my issues, I find they run deeper than suspected. I’m starting to wonder if they aren’t just bottomless chasms that I will never fully be able to rid myself of. If I will always be unable to survive because of an inability to diffuse my own faulty wiring.

I always figured the hardest part of making music would be finding work.

Instead, my daily struggle is overcoming the tapes inside my head that have taught me that what I contribute isn’t valuable in this world. These beliefs keep me weighed down in my bed under a cloud of anxiety and depression. They clog my mind, so that I can’t hear the whisper of creativity. They inform me that I’m don’t work hard enough, suffer enough, sacrifice enough to be worthy. They make every purchase feel like bloodletting until I begin to wonder how long, conceivably, I can actually live off of ramen.

But I keep showing up.

Everything you love takes commitment. You will be tested over and over and over again. There will be crossroads sometimes more than there are clear paths. Sometimes it will feel like too much.